Hello dear readers. I hope you’re all doing well and that the Internet’s Best Blog finds you happy. One of my two New Year’s Resolutions was to blog more often; as you can see, I’ve not done so well with that one. If it’s any consolation, I’ve not done so well with the other resolution either, which was to use all of my vacation days at work instead of letting them go to waste again. (NO, I do not get them “bought out” at the end of the year.) I should have taken Martin Luther King day off last week, but didn’t plan far enough in advance. I guess it’s not that big a deal, but it would have been nice to sleep in. Anyway, hopefully this is the last time I have to apologize for the delay in dropping in on my corner of the world wide web.

I don’t know how things are going for you, but so far 2007 has been a bust. So much for high hopes. A week into the new year, the very same tooth I had a root canal on in good ole ‘06 began throbbing. As the whole point of a root canal is to abate throbbing pain, or any other sensation, it didn’t take me long to decide that this was an unfortunate turn of events. So off to Dr. Fine I went.

After he fiddled with the tooth (which shall henceforth be known as Bain) and took a quick picture of it, he decided he couldn’t determine what’s wrong with it because, as it turns out, there is a wisdom tooth blocking the camera’s view. “If we want to figure out what’s really going on,” he says, “you should go to an oral surgeon. That’s the gold standard determination.” I don’t know much about teeth, but whenever the words “surgeon” and “gold standard” are mentioned in the same sentence, I don know it ain’t gonna be cheap. However, given the choice between debt and pain, I guess I’ll choose debt. At least there is a possible remedy for the debt; like George Bush’s bungled war, the pain could go on forever.

My dentist recommended a surgeon, and off I went. Apparently being an oral surgeon is good business, because that was one busy office. It was so busy, in fact, that I waited ninety minutes past my scheduled appointment to be seen. Finally a woman who looked like a science experiment gone horribly wrong escorted me to a room and took a panoramic X-ray of my mouth, which I have to admit was pretty cool. I was then shown to the waiting room in the back of the office. To get there, one has to walk by three operating rooms, which appeared to be the training grounds for future soldiers at Guantanamo. Each room had a patient in a chair, lying back, mouth agape, eyes staring straight ahead as if to say, “I’m not here, I’m not in pain,” while two pairs of hands darted in and out of their mouths, holding sharp bloodied tools.

“Self,” I thought, “this is not good.” When Dr. Klein introduced himself, I was a bit taken aback by dollops of blood splattered across his chest, but I bucked up and put on my best game face. Klein smiled as if to say “they didn’t feel a thing” and proceeded to tell me that there was one of three things wrong with Bain; A) Nothing, B) It’s fractured, or C) It’s infected. Unfortunately, the only way to find out is to take out the wisdom tooth next to it, and while the gum is cut open take a look and see what’s going on.

“If it’s fractured, we’ll pull it, if it’s infected, we’ll clean it and if nothing is wrong, we’ll close it up and send you home. If it’s B or C, it will be a little painful and/or costly.” For all you dentists out there, I recommend when relaying bad news to your patient, you do so with a modicum of grace.

“So,” I say, “I guess while we’re taking out the one wisdom tooth blocking the bad tooth, we should consider taking out any other wisdom teeth, right?”

“Well,” Klein sighed, “we can take out the other top one no problem, but the one on the bottom… that one has a nerve wrapped around it. I’ve never said this to anyone, but never, never have that tooth pulled. Unless you can be unconscious for a week after. Ha ha.” In my mind, an oral surgeon telling you to leave a tooth alone is like a waiter being honest with you about the fish of the day; you should listen. So I agreed to leave that tooth alone.

That still leaves the two wisdom teeth on top that have to be ripped out, and as Klein was explaining the procedure to me and the various options available to Bain, I couldn’t help but see dollar signs floating above my head and then popping like little bubbles right in front of me.

“Ok, so two wisdom teeth will cost about how much,” I ask.

“$400 each, plus another $400 if you want to be put under by the anesthesiologist.”
”If? Book him.”

“Ok, now for the other tooth, well it depends on what we find. If it’s fractured we’ll pull it and that’s about $400. If it’s infected, we’ll clean it out and that’s a little pricey, about $1500.”

Once again, in the span of two hours, I went from being a hair’s breath away from a debt free existence to another six or seven months of working two jobs.

Dear 2007: I am not impressed.

“So, call your dentist and then we’ll talk,” Klein said, “but either way, go ahead and schedule the extractions.” The science experiment and I scheduled the appointment for February 2nd and I went on my way.

My conversation with my dentist was very brief, but it is time like these that I’m happy to be from the South. See, in the South everyone knows you attract more flies with honey. Some situations call for absolute sweetness; New Yorkers in general aren’t capable of sweetness. So I dug down to my roots, called my dentist and played the nice guy. Pay attention meanies, you’re about to learn something.

Start off with a little flattery.

“Gee Dr. F, I don’t know what to do. I would really appreciate your advice, because I know you and trust you. Should I go through with this?”

“Absolutely,” he says.

Then suck up a little.

“Well, you know, I mean I’m sure you think it’s best, but we don’t even know what we’re going to find when he’s in there. When all is said and done, this could cost $2500… before I commit to that, I would really appreciate it if you could assure me that this is the best way to proceed. If you say it is, then I guess I will go ahead and do it.”

“Yes, I think you should do it,” he says.

And now, ever so delicately, drop the bomb

“But gosh, it’s so expensive. I mean, geez, I really am shocked at the cost because when you filed this tooth down after I said not to, you said you would cover the cost of fixing it if something went wrong, but this is a significant expense, and I wouldn’t want either of us to have to absorb it.”

Silence.

“Let me call you back,” he says.

Five minutes later, Dr. F called and said he felt horrible about all of this and that if I could cover the costs of extracting the wisdom teeth, he would cover the costs associated with saving Bain.

And now, the coup de grace; play humble.

“Oh my god, Dr. F. I can’t ask that of you.”

“No, I insist.”

“Thank you. Really, thank you.”

I figure, all in all this will cost me about $1200 for the wisdom teeth, which is a little easier to swallow. It’s not ideal, but it’s better than the alternative. However, consider yourselves warned dear readers, you will hear all about my wisdom teeth extraction. Experience dictates it will not be fun.

In other news, my dvr is not working properly again. Now it freezes whenever I watch The Colbert Report. (Maybe my dvr is Republican.) I haven’t had the strength to call Time Warner yet. And get your Nan and rice out, because it appears that Curry-Fest 2007 has begun. Last night the smell was so bitter it woke me up out of a dead sleep at 4:00am. Who cooks curry at 4:00am you ask? Cab drivers.

And finally, I learned a valuable lesson today and I thought I would share. See how giving I am? MSNBC had an article about how some scientists discovered that if you microwave your sponges for two minutes, it kills 99% of the bacteria living on them. “Great!” I thought, “I’m going to go home and sanitize my sponges.” Hey, we take our excitement where we can get it.

What they failed to mention, and for some reason what I didn’t even consider, was that the scientists were not talking about the sponges with the scrubby green side. The results were less than spectacular, although there were fireworks. I assure you, I’m not this dumb normally. In fact, I’m very bright, which is a good thing, because it took some quick thinking to toss the carousel of flaming sponges into the sink. It’s now three hours later and my eyes are still stinging from the acrid smell of burning scrub brush.

Moral of the story: for the sake of your olfactory senses, please just buy new sponges. Be well.

The Saga Continues

Howdy all. I hope the millions of you out there who enjoy my blog had a great holiday season. I, of course, celebrated the birth of my Lord and Savior in style, but that was way back on November 11th. (Leonardo’s birthday. Duh.) I also had an awesome Christmas and New Years by doing what I enjoy most. (Well, second most.) I drank, slept, played video games, hung out with friends and tooled around the city. FOR 11 DAYS! It freakin rocked.

In other news, guess whose DVR is not working again. No, not Condoleeza Rice’s, mine. Color me surprised. The latest technician to visit literally looked at the cable box, turned it on, turned it off and said “I don’t know what’s wrong” and left. He was so absurdly stupid it wasn’t worth even discussing and I let him leave. I did manage to get into a screaming match with some moron at customer service, and now I have another technician coming on Saturday. Joy.

So when last we spoke, I had just regaled you with my story of how putting a plastic cover on a mattress can lead you to insanity. Sadly, that’s not where the bed bug story ends. That would be far too easy.

The day after I confirmed that it was indeed bed bugs biting me and not some kinky trick, I called my landlord to let him know. I figured it was A) important to tell him because bedbugs can travel from apartment to apartment easier than the smell of curry (which we all know is pretty easy) and B) I needed him to schedule the exterminator. New York City law requires that landlords provide an exterminator once a month, which ours does, but there is no requirement that they actually tell you when one is coming, so I usually miss him. This time I wanted to make an appointment.

This is how our conversation went.

Your Fearless Hero: “Hi Larry, it’s Shawn in Apartment 21.”

Larry the Landlord: “Sigh. Hi Shawn, how are you?” (He hates when I call him because he knows something is wrong.)

Your Fearless Hero: “I’m ok, Larry, but I wanted to let you know that I’ve just discovered that I have bedbugs in my apartment.”

Larry the Landlord: “Oh Jesus! That’s horrible. I can’t believe it!”

Your Fearless Hero: “I know, so can you schedule an exterminator to come out?”

Larry the Landlord: “Absolutely, let me call him and call you back.”

Pretty fair result as far as I was concerned. Sadly, the story merely begins here.

The exterminator arrived the next day. Let’s call him Exterminator A. Exterminator A could barely fit through my door, or the narrow hallway that goes through my apartment. (A foyer if you will.) He squeezed his portly way through, plopped out on the other side, whipped out his can of chemicals and started spraying. While he sprayed, the following conversation ensued.

Exterminator A: “Roaches, huh?”

Your Fearless Hero: “Uh, no. Bedbugs.”

Exterminator A: “Bedbugs!? Jesus, nobody told me that. I don’t got the right chemicals for bedbugs.”

Your Fearless Hero: “Oh.”

Exterminator A: “I may as well stop now, cuz this crap here ain’t gonna do no good. This here’s for roaches.” (Stops spraying.)
Your Fearless Hero: “Uh huh.”

Exterminator A: “You got roaches?”

Your Fearless Hero: “No.”

Exterminator A: “All right, can you sign this to show I was here at least?”

Your Fearless Hero: “Sure.” (Signs paper.)

Exterminator A: “See yous later.”

This new wrinkle did not make me happy. All the websites I read made it very clear that you should spray early and often, because the eggs can hatch within a few days and then the whole process has to start all over. So now I was a day behind the eight ball. I’ll let you imagine the phone call I made to Larry the Landlord, since most of it is not suitable for children under the age of 13.

The following day, another exterminator arrived. For shits and giggles, let’s call him Exterminator B. And just so you know, Exterminator B is really, really smokin’ hot. Like Brad Pitt hot, but dumber, which I think makes him even hotter.

Exterminator B: “Hi. Bedbugs, huh?”

Your Fearless Hero, quivering: “Yes.”

Exterminator B: “Yeah. I’ve been to this building about 50 times or so because of bedbugs.”

Your Fearless Hero: “Uhh, really?”

Exterminator B: “Oh yeah. It started about a year ago. The guy upstairs from you? He bought a bed off ebay. Who buys a bed off ebay? And most the people in this building, they don’t let me in. Cuz you know, they’re afraid I’m immigration.”

So not only was the whole bedbug thing a recurring issue and not only did my landlord act all horrified at the situation and not only did I have neighbors who were more concerned about Homeland Security than cleanliness, but the whole thing started because Stompy McStomper bought a nasty ass bed off of ebay! The ignominy of it all.

Exterminator B: “Hey, you mind if I take my shirt off?”

All right, I can dream can’t I?

Exterminator B then proceeds to spray chemicals over most of the obvious areas one would think to spray when combating pernicious little fuckers like bedbugs; floor boards, closets, dark corners and so on. He sprayed around my bed a little and by all the windows. Then he took his pants off. Oops, sorry, wrong movie.

Exterminator B: “So you know you gotta have someone out here next week right?”

Your Fearless Hero: “Yeah, I know, I heard that. Will it be you?” I was, you know, just curious.

Exterminator B: “Dunno, but if you want I can tell them you request me since I got knowledge about the case.”

Your Fearless Hero: “Yeah, that’d be cool. I’d rather have someone who knows what’s going on.”

Exterminator B: “Yeah, sure thing. Oh and hey, I got this really tight spot on my inner thigh. Would you mind rubbing it down for me?”

Your Fearless Hero: “No problem.”

End scene.

The week between Exterminator B’s first visit and what I hoped to be his second visit was interminable. I vacuumed every day when I got home from work, and scrubbed everything I could think of within an inch of its life. Twice. I have never seen a cleaner apartment. And while I was enjoying some small comfort from the fact that I was no longer being bitten, my friends and coworkers… and you know who you are… decided that the best approach to take with me during this delicate time was to mock me.

True there are those of you out there who chose not to make fun of me during my crisis, but some of your fellow compatriots were not so kind and decided it would be funny to make the whole situation fodder for their twisted sense of humor. I lost count of how many times I heard “Don’t let the bed bugs bite.” Or, “why are you scratching so much? Got crabs?” Or, “do they bite… down there?” And my personal favorite, “I can’t believe they went after those skinny legs.” The horror, the horror. But you are all forgiven, because that’s the kind of guy I am.

At long last, enter the third, and final, exterminator a week later. Exterminator C was sadly not Exterminator B. Sorry to disappoint you all, but Exterminator C was a husky, middle aged man with more hair in his nose than on his head.

Exterminator C, coughing: “Aw geez, bedbugs huh? I’m sorry man. Hey you mind if I smoke?”

Your Fearless Hero: “Yeah, bedbugs. I’d prefer if you didn’t smoke actually. Sorry.”

Exterminater C, begrudgingly placing cigarettes back in pocket and coughing: “That’s all right, I understand.”

Exterminator C then does a quick perusal of my apartment, and applauds me for how thorough I’ve been. “Most peoples, they just throw the bed away and get a new one, (cough) but that don’t do no good cuz the bedbugs, they just get into that one too. They should be called EverywhereBugs because they can live everywheres. Ha ha ha ha ha (cough) (cough) (cough) (cough) (cough) Sheesh, you got your clothes in vacuum sealed bags. (cough) I gotta get me some of those. You know, these bedbugs, they’re really making a comeback. (cough) The city only lets us use this one chemical. Back in the old days, we was allowed to use (cough) DDT.”

Your Fearless Hero: “That was a long time ago, right?”

Exterminator C: (cough) “Oy yeah, (cough) that was back in the 70’s. I was spraying that stuff all the time. (cough) I’ve been doing this (cough) since (cough) I was 12. It was my father’s business (cough) and now I’m takin it over, and (cough) my son, he’s next in line, only he don’t want to do it. (cough) He says he doesn’t like bein around chemicals all day. (cough) Pussy. (cough).”

Your Fearless Hero, eyeing Exterminator C spraying chemicals all over the floor: “These chemicals are… safe now though, right?”

Exterminator C: “This stuff here? (cough) Oh yeah, perfectly safe. (cough) I’ve gotten this stuff in my mouth, in my hair (cough) and even once on my YOU KNOW WHAT. Don’t ask. Hahahahaha (cough) (cough) (cough) (cough).”

Your Fearless Hero, backing away: “Oh, ok.”

Exterminator C: “(cough) So the thing is, with these bedbugs, you gotta be thorough, you know what I mean? (cough) You got to spray everything you can think of. (cough) You mind if I do that?”

Your Fearless Hero pauses, then agrees.

Imagine, if you will, an elephant happily sunbathing in a gentle pond. Imagine said elephant plops his long trunk down into the pond, snorts up a huge gulp of water, lifts his snout up high into the air, and sprays the water far and wide. Thus you have a fairly accurate picture if how Exterminator C approached my bedbug problem.

He opened my dressers and sprayed inside those. He opened my closets and sprayed the floors and walls. He sprayed my bathroom, my toilet, my tub, the area under my tub, the tv stand, the computer desk, the bookshelf, and then to my surprise the bed, plastic sheets and all.

Exterminator C: (cough) “Might as well get them where they live.”

Your Fearless Hero: “Um, it’ll be ok to sleep on that right?”

Exterminator C: “Just let it dry for a day. Maybe two. (cough)”

Then he started on the walls. Anywhere that even appeared to have a crawl-able space was blasted with whatever chemical the city has deemed safe to employ in the attempt to kill bedbugs.

Your Fearless Hero, standing on one side of kitchen doorframe: “Wow, you sprayed a lot.”

Exterminator C, on the other side of the doorframe.: “I’m almost done. I just gotta do the kitchen. I’ll start with this doorframe here.”

Until this point in my life, I have happily been able to say that while I’ve had many things sprayed in my face, cancerous bug spray has not been one of them. Unfortunately, as your Your Fearless Hero stood shocked and awed, Exterminator C lifted his sprayer, pointed it at the door frame and went to town, without waiting until Your Fearless Hero could get out of the way. I was covered, head to toe, in a fine coating of whatever it was Exterminator C was blanketing the rest of my apartment with.

Your Fearless Hero: “Uh, um, I, shit, I’m in your way.”Exterminator C: (cough) “Eh, don’t worry, this shit, it’s pansy ass. It won’t hurt you. Just don’t swallow it.”

Your Fearless Hero, to self: “I’ve heard that before.”

Exterminator C: “Huh?”

Your Fearless Hero: “Nothing. Um, so you’re done now right?”

Exterminator C: “Yep, all wrapped up here. So, you know, if they come back, just call us. But this should pretty much kill anything that can walk. (cough) This stuff here, you’ll be lucky if your little tadpoles will be swimming tonight, you know what I mean? (cough) Anywayz, just sign this piece of paper that shows I’m here, and I’ll be (cough) outta your hair. You gotta nice place here. Once you get rid of these bedbugs, it’ll be a nice little home for you and your girlfriend.”

Your Fearless Hero: “Yeah, she loves it here. Thanks. Here you go.”

Exterminator C: “Thanks man. Call us if you need us. (cough).”

Exterminator C was barely out the door when I slammed the door shut, ripped off my poisonous clothing and booked it to the shower where I stood under the hottest water I could stand and scrubbed every square inch of my body a la Silkwood. I threw the pants and the shirt away.

To Exterminator C’s credit, and knock on wood for me when you read this, I’ve not seen a bedbug since. I now have six toes, three testicles and a boil on my left knee, but I’ll be damned if I have any bedbugs.

I leave you, and this story, with a final thought. For the love of god, if someone you know or care about becomes afflicted with this horrible pestilence, please… please don’t say “Don’t let the bed bugs bite.” Seriously, it’s not funny. Or original.

Up next, apartment hunting in New York City. Until then, have fun sleeping tonight.